Better Than Expected
by Charis77
Summary: Revised ending to Mass Effect 3: Female Shepard reminisces on the difficult choice she made to save the universe and contemplates her relationship with Garrus. *Contains Spoilers*


Author's Note: I was one of those disappointed with the ending of Mass Effect 3. In my mind, I envisioned a whole different ending and this fanfic is a result. If you liked the endings to the game, you probably won't like my story. If you, like me, want a different turn of events, I hope you enjoy this vision of mine.

* * *

I awake with a sudden start, gasping aloud, sitting up abruptly, afraid and startled. Gazing around the room, for the hundredth time I realize I only had a bad dream. I feel my heart pumping and reach over to drink the glass of water by my bed. A soft cry from the living area alerts me. _That_ was what woke me up, the cry that made it into my dream, only created louder and scarier through my nightmare.

Really, the dreams have diminished over time. Two years ago they were so intense I had to seek out help in dealing with them. A counselor and medication did the trick. I still find it ironic that when the entire universe was hailing me as a hero, I was sitting in a psychologist's office by day and taking a pill by night just to keep myself functional. The newly created United Intergalactic Alliance wanted me to travel and make speeches, but I only made one. Hackett made sure they recorded it and broadcast it wherever they went so I could be left alone for the time being.

The cry that woke me from my dream descends into a quiet whimper. I put the glass back down on the night side stand having drained the contents. Silently, I slip out of bed. I can tell it's early morning, even though the shades are still lowered. I walk down the hallway, then stop at the end, peering into the living area. I smile, enjoying the sight. There sit the two people that mean more to me than anyone else in the universe, and trust me, I have _a lot_ of great friends. But these two are the dearest to my heart.

Garrus doesn't notice me; he just continues to rock the bundle he's holding. My mom gave us that antique rocking chair the day she found out the number of our family would change. I love seeing him in it, when his gentle side is most exposed. I read in his face contentment, happiness and pride. I feel like I'm falling in love all over again. How far we have come! I can hardly believe I met him so long ago, a C-sec officer. How lucky I was he joined my team. Or was it destiny that brought us together?

I stand at the end of the hallway, not daring to move a muscle and disturb the precious scene in front of me. I don't want to break this feeling I'm having right now as I admire my husband, my lover, my friend. My mind flutters backwards, reminiscing, remembering with both joy and pain the day he proposed, a day I would never forget…

* * *

Pain throbbed through my body, but I ignored it. I'd had enough practice at pushing through physical agony. I heard a voice calling me, insisting I keep moving. Who was it? I had to think through a sluggish mind, but in a moment recalled that it was the voice of Admiral Hackett.

"Shepard, are you there?"

I couldn't respond, but I started to crawl. Captain Anderson, my good friend and a great soldier, had just died next to me. I was reeling, emotionally and physically, still, I kept moving, willing myself forward.

"Shepard, do you read me? Nothing's happening. The Crucible is together, but nothing is happening."

I couldn't manage to open my mouth, but inside I thought, _Are you kidding me? All this way and nothing?_ There was a control panel a few feet in front of me. I thought if I just touched it, maybe pushed a button or something. I almost reached the panel, then collapsed, utterly spent. I knew I had nothing left in me. I thought the Crucible and I were both finished, empty at the end with nothing to give.

Then, unexpectedly, I felt my body rising off the floor. _Is this death?_ I wondered. _Where am I going?_ I'm pretty sure at that point I went unconscious. My troubled mind, overwhelmed with constant fighting and life or death decisions coalesced into a weird dream. I saw that little boy I'd been tormented by in dreams on the Normandy, only now he looked translucent, like congealed water. He talked to me about choices, told me I could destroy the Reapers or control them. I could either follow the Illusive Man or Captain Anderson. Then he offered me a third choice. Maybe in my dream I longed for a third option, something better? I could make all Organics partly Synthetic and all Synthetics partly Organic. It sounded good at the time, but, of course, completely impossible. How could the blast from a station do that? The little boy finally asked me to choose, but my body had stopped ascending and I jolted to consciousness. I opened my eyes to find I had arrived in another room, somewhere I had never seen in the Citadel.

I was lying in the middle of a circular floor. The walls were transparent, sporting large windows, allowing me to view the space battle occurring right outside. On any other day, the sight would have been beautiful, the chance to gaze at millions of stars. Now, I only perceived the deaths of thousands of friends and comrades. I think that thought was what pulled me to my feet.

I slowly stood, breathing heavily, trying to figure out where I was. There wasn't much. Just a simple control panel attached to a short podium at one end of the room. I moved as fast as I could to the panel, though I think "fast" probably was only a snail's pace. When I reached it, I saw only a keyboard of strange symbols.

"Presence detected." I jumped at the voice that suddenly sounded behind me. Turning, I saw a holographic Prothean VI.

"What do I do?" I cried out urgently. "I don't understand these symbols."

"The designers of this device intended me to guide those who succeeded in completing the Crucible."

"So tell me how to activate it."

"It is already activated. You must broadcast a signal that will be received by all Reaper forces."

"The Crucible just sends a signal?" I was incredulous. "Why make something so large if it just sends a signal?"

"The Reapers are enabled with numerous defenses, including technology that protects their communication network. Previous races determined the broadcasting of the signal would need to be stronger than any communication device ever constructed."

I put my hand to my chest, breathing shallowly. "What will the signal accomplish?"

The green hologram displayed a series of symbols between outstretched arms. "My designers believed this code would destroy all Reapers causing a self-destruct sequence imbedded in all Reaper forces."

"They believed?" I asked. Didn't they know if this would work or not?

"They recovered the code under dubious circumstances. The scientists who originally found the code were later discovered to have been indoctrinated. The timing of their indoctrination was in doubt. It was not clear if they were indoctrinated before or after the discovery of the code."

"Yet, the Protheans decided to use it with the Crucible anyway," I stated.

The hologram concurred. "They were desperate for an answer. The code was their final hope."

"Then it's mine as well," I muttered. I reached out my hands to the console, looking back at the symbols the VI still displayed.

"However, there is another signal you can send."

I paused, my finger halted from pressing the first symbol. "Another one?"

"It is a signal of servitude."

"What does that mean?" Now I was confused. What more would the Protheans want than to destroy the Reapers?

The VI explained and the symbols between his hands altered. "The designers of the Crucible disagreed on the ultimate purpose of this device. With a lack of consensus, but in a desperate need to create it, they delayed argument over its purpose. They incorporated both views into this device intending to make a unified decision at a later time when more data became available."

"So, what was the argument about?" I wondered.

"One side desired to destroy the Reapers. The other wanted to control them."

"The Illusive Man was right," I whispered. They _could_ be controlled.

"You may send a signal that will enable you to control the Reapers from the Crucible. This will effectively end the cycle."

"What _is_ the cycle?"

"The Reapers were created by an advanced race of unknown origin. The Protheans debated the purpose of the Reapers. The most widely accepted belief was that the Reapers were created as a way of scientific preservation. The Reapers were meant to preserve the collected knowledge of all races in the universe as they evolved."

"They preserved races by destroying them?" I said skeptically.

"The Protheans believed that the creators of the Reapers viewed scientific discovery as the ultimate achievement. Therefore, the destruction of life was of little consequence."

"But whole worlds destroyed?"

"It is assumed the creators of the Reapers did not mean to enslave entire worlds. The Reapers were designed to harvest advanced knowledge from all races every 50,000 years. They would then return to their creators with this knowledge and their creators would catalogue and expand upon it. If this scenario is accurate, the creators would not need entire worlds, but only samples."

"So the Reapers still contain all this knowledge?"

"Potentially, yes. Thus, some Protheans desired to control the Reapers, intending to use the knowledge they had attained."

For the first time, the Illusive Man's idea to control the Reapers made sense to me. Not his want to make the Reapers a fighting force, but controlling them could advance the races of the universe by thousands of years. Why not control them?

I almost began to input the code, but a warning pulsed throughout my mind. I turned back to the VI. "Wait. If the creators of the Reapers made them to only harvest samples, what went wrong? And why haven't we met these creators?"

"The Protheans had no knowledge of an answer to this question."

"But I can think of one," I stated aloud. What if the Reapers turned on their own creators? Hadn't I seen this before? Hadn't the Quarians created the Geth only to find themselves in a war? Yes, the Geth had only fought for their survival, but they had still become a danger to their creators. Had the creators of the Reapers foreseen this possibility and thus included the self-destruct sequence in their creation? Then why hadn't they destroyed the Reapers when they got out of hand? Or maybe…maybe the creators of the Reapers decided to use them a different way, as an army, just like the Illusive Man wanted. Maybe their search for knowledge had turned into a desire to dominate other races.

"Whoever controls the Reapers could use them as weapons," I stated.

"This was the crux of the debate among the Protheans. Those who wished to control the Reapers argued that to destroy them was to waste the knowledge they contained. Those who argued for destruction thought to leave them intact was to risk war at a later time if the Reapers ever came under the control of a suspect individual."

I stared down at the strange symbols. What should I choose? I wished Garrus were right beside me. We could have one of our philosophical discussions and figure this thing out.

"If I control them, we'll have knowledge of the history and science of thousands of species. If I destroy them, we lose that knowledge, knowledge of species we may never have even known existed."

"This is correct," the VI confirmed my summation.

"Yet, if I don't destroy them, who can we trust to control them? How can we be certain they won't be used against others ever again?"

"You cannot be certain as many Protheans were not certain."

My eyes flickered to the battle outside the windows. Destroy or control? Destruction or knowledge? What information was in those Reapers right now? Did I want us to lose it all? Or did I want this battle over and done with?

"Show me the codes." The VI responded to my command, both codes appearing horizontal and parallel to each other between his outstretched arms.

"Here goes nothing," I stated grimly. My fingers flew over the keyboard, pushing key after key. I looked out at the battle, waiting with bated breath. Then it happened. The Reapers stopped moving, there was a pause, and then explosions began. They rippled all over the expanse and all over Earth. I chose destruction. Even as I did it, I felt relief and regret at the same moment. All those races, all that collective knowledge that could have been put to good use lost in the sending of one signal.

As I watched the Reapers burst into flame, I sank to the ground. I was spent. I had nothing left in me. My arms were covered in blood, my side wounded and bleeding out. And I was so tired. I laid down. The VI had flickered out. I was alone. _I'm going to die._ I closed my eyes. At least I could die happy, knowing the universe was now safe.

* * *

"Shepard…Shepard…" I heard a voice far distant. It was like an annoying fly. "Shepard…" Why couldn't that voice just leave me alone? I was too tried to answer and the darkness too comfortable. "Shepard…Can you hear me?" Yes. I can hear you. Who are you? "Shepard…" Argh! That voice wasn't going to leave me alone until I answered, was it?

Slowly, even the movement of my eyelids was a chore, I managed to open my eyes. There was the only face that I would have wanted to see at that moment. That beautiful, gray, scaly face.

"Garrus," I managed to speak his name.

He smiled, sighed, and then looked to someone beyond my sight. I suddenly realized I was moving, laying down, but still moving forward. I forced my eyes to glance at my feet and saw an orderly. Ah, that was it then. I was on a gurney.

"Garrus," I repeated.

He looked back down at me, then reached out and took my hand. "I'm right here." His gravelly voice was all the comfort I needed. I closed my eyes again.

"You're going to live, Shepard," I heard him say. "So you might as well get used to me being here for you. After all, I didn't buy that ring for nothing."

My eyes popped open, a surge of adrenaline pulsing through my body.

"You what?" I asked.

"Well, the vids mentioned that an old tradition of humans when they want to make their attachment a formality is to give a ring. Kind of strange, but I went with it. Didn't want to give it to you before the battle. Figured I'd keep as a good luck charm, a guarantee that we'd make it through this."

Garrus brought his other hand up and in it he showed me the ring, a simple golden circle. He placed in on my ring finger of the hand he was already holding. "There. Guess that makes us official now." He was smiling. "That is, if you accept. That was in the vids, too."

I tried to laugh, but it hurt. So I just said, "I accept," and closed my eyes again, resting in the pleasure of his hand holding mine.

* * *

My mind is brought back to the moment as I watch Garrus adjust the bundle in his arms, speaking softly. He's been my rock, my confidant, my helper. He stood by my side as I recovered, there at every physical therapy session, pushing me to get healthy. He shielded me, fielding interview requests from numerous news agencies. He still protects me, carrying a concealed handgun at all times, ready to defend me. Such a sad but necessary defense. Although most laud my choice to destroy the Reapers, some are angry about it. There are those who would have harnessed the Reapers. Their voices grow more silent by the day, but you never know what can happen.

I have stopped worrying about who feels what about me. In fact, I hardly concern myself with the universe anymore. Maybe it is selfish of me, but I'm done. I'm ready to recover and to live a simple life. That's why we came here. We're out of the way from the rest of the universe in a lush paradise all our own. Well, mostly. Joker found this uninhabited planet, full of green life. It's been established as a colony for refugees willing to begin a whole new life. Whereas I used to concern myself with the universe, now I administrate one single colony. It's a bit peculiar what I'm doing now, a desk job. But I get out when I can to talk to the colonists and encourage them. That's really what I think they need anyway. I'm a symbol that they can achieve success on this new world. I have a good staff that is easy to delegate to and they get the job done. Not to mention Joker and EDI, a couple themselves, who decided to join the colony. With them around, I never have to worry about being overworked.

"There's my girl." Garrus' voice pulls me out of my reverie. I thought he was talking to the bundle, but he's looking at me. I smile broadly, then approach and take the hand offered me. I sit down on the couch next to the rocking chair. I let go of his hand and rub my eyes.

"Another dream?" he asks.

"Yes, but don't worry. I'm sure they'll stop sometime," I reassure him.

He cocks his head. "It might take a lifetime to forget the things we've seen."

"I don't know that I want to forget it," I insist.

"No, you're right," he agrees. "If we forget, then we lose the lessons we learned."

"Exactly." I love his wisdom.

"And we need to pass what we learned on to the next generation. They won't grow up appreciating every breath they take if we don't remind them that they almost didn't have it."

I nod, amazed by the truth in his words. He stands up and moves to the couch, sitting next to me, then hands the bundle over to me. This is our own private hope for the future. No one knew if this was even possible. We were told not to try it. The doctors reminded us that every Human-Turian couple in existence had chosen adoption over biological conception. We joked often about my adopting a Krogan statement back on Earth. But we both knew we wanted a child that contained our combined DNA. We had already done the impossible—stopping the Reapers. Why not try for another impossibility?

I coo at the baby in my arms. She's our miracle. Five months old, she's strong and hardy like a Turian, yet her gray skin is soft like mine. She has her daddy's eyes. I think most people would see her as fully Turian, but her fluffy red hair gives her away.

"We've paid the price to make a better world for her," I whisper.

Garrus puts his arm around my shoulders, leans in and kisses me. "It's better."

I hug my little girl to my chest and lean into Garrus. _It's better, better than I ever expected_.


End file.
